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Spring Robot
Games 2002 Announcement
The Robotics Society of America is proud to announce our March 2002 Sumo Wrestling Competition and Robotics Expo. Bring yourself, your family, and your robot. The event is free for competitors, and audience members are free with Exploratorium admission.
Event: Sumo-Robot Wrestling Competition and Robotics Expo 2002
Place: Exploratorium - 3601 Lyon Street, San Francisco, 94123
Date: Wednesday, March 20th, 2002
Time: Noon - 9PM
Contact: David Calkins - robots@thoughtpolice.com
Don't have a robot? Don't worry - The program also features robot-related competitions, demonstrations, speakers, videos, and exhibitors at the show to keep you busy, entertained, and learning!
Want to compete but can't make the competition in person? Robotstore.com has generously donated return postage for any robots shipped to us for this event! If you ship your bot to us with an enclosed return shipping label, robotstore.com will ship it back to you for free! And of course, if your bot wins a prize, it will be shipped back with your robot! Many thanks to Roger Gilbertson at robotstore.com for this generous donation!
High Schools and Colleges are strongly encouraged to contact us and build a robot for the competition. Sumo bots, Mindstorm bots, and Aibo performers can all be designed and built within a week or two. Contact us for more information! Help is available for students and teachers wanted to build robots for this competition - send e-mail to robots@thoughtpolice.com.
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Afternoon competitions (Noon-4 PM):
SUMO, SUMO, SUMO! This is the big show folks! Bring or send your Full size (3 kg @ 20 cm²) or Mini (0.5 kg @ 10 cm²) Sumo for the big games against the ten visiting Japanese World Champions for a purse of $2000! Excitement abounds as sumo robots capable of operating upside-down knock each other out of the sumo ring.
This is the major event of the day, and we expect competitors from all over the world. Robots powerful enough to push humans out of the ring. All rules can be found here: http://www.thoughtpolice.com/robots/
Participants need to arrive by 11 a.m. to be certified to compete for Sumo, so don't be late! Warm-ups begin at Noon, and the competitions start at 1 PM sharp.
Evening competitions (6 PM - 9 PM):
LINE-FOLLOWING - It's back! Enter any sized robot in our annual line following contests. Fastest robot to finish following the black line on white board wins.
THE LEGO OPEN - Judges by Anthony Fudd himself, this contest lets you show your best stuff. No specific challenge to conquer - your only limited by your imagination and lego-specific parts. Using any Mindstorms set or add-ons (e.g., Extreme Creatures, Dark Side, Vision Command, etc.) build the robot of your dreams. Will it play cards? Do the laundry? Annoy your siblings? Climb a wall? The robots judged to be the most creative, best engineered, and most versatile win.
LEGO CHALLENGE - Just like the training mission on their website, you can test your skills to complete a lap around courses of increasing complexity in time trials. More info on the challenge can be found here: http://mindstorms.lego.com/community/missions/mission.asp
AIBO PERFORMANCE CONTEST - Teach your aibo some new tricks, and impress our panel. Tricks can be up to 3 minutes in length, but there's no limit put on what the tricks are. So do your best and prepare to go up against some tough competitors!
AIBO GREYHOUND RACES - If you've got an Aibo with Navigator, prove just how fast your aibo can move as Aibo 210's and 220's race around a track to show who's top dog. Err, cat. Or is lion? Well, top Aibo.
WALKER CHALLENGE - If you've got a four-, six-, or eight-legged walking robot, enter it in our difficult course to prove which robot is the fattest, most agile, walker in this one-bot town.
THE RSA OPEN - Any bot. Any talent. Any size. This is the audience favorite. Enter any robot and show off it's abilities, looks, or intelligence. Audience applause determines the winner.
All contest winners recieve prizes. Top prize is $2000 for full-scale autonomous Sumo, thanks to the generous contributions of FujiSoft.
EXHIBITS AND LECTURES
BATTLEBOTS - See some of the famous bots from the hit Comedy Central TV show up close, and listen to the builders and drivers explain the challenges, victories, and hard work that goes with this exciting new sport. SPeakers include Lisa and Mike Winter (builders of Mecha Tentoumushi, Shaft, and Whirl Wep X25), Stephen Felk (builder of Voltronic and Swarm) and others!
NASA - Visit their booth and see how NASA robots work in both space and here on Earth, and how NASA helps kids build robots with their FIRST and BotBall competitions. You'll even be able to see a working replica of the famous Mars Rover!
EVOLUTION ROBOTICS - See the exciting new EK300 Robot and how this little robot plans on changing the world. With it's artificial intelligence, live-video camera, and speech and voice-recognition, you'll change your ides on what's science fiction and what's science fact.
ART ROBOTS - View exciting artistic robots and see another side of robotics - how their not just used for work or for play, but for expanding the reaches of art.
HOMEMADE ROBOTS - Lots of different robots will be playing around during the day - Snake robots, waiter robots, talking robots, walking robots, and more. Throughout the building you'll find big and small, fat and tall robots; all with different features but everyone a big step forward in robotic evolution.
FAMOUS ROBOTS - We can't mention their names here, but you'll recognize some of the most famous and well-loved robots in the universe who show up for the biggest robot show of it's kind in the U.S.
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To register, for more information, or to ship a robot, just send an e-mail to
robots@thoughtpolice.com
Note: All rules subject to change, and some contests subject to cancellation based on number of entries received.
The games are still looking for sponsors - contact robots@thoughtpolice.com if your company or group would like to become an event sponsor and garner lots of publicity and gratitude.
[Please feel free to forward this to any robotic newsgroups, BBS's, lists, websites, etc.]
-David Calkins, President
Robotics Society of America
http://www.robots.org
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Silicon shall replace Carbon.
The revolution will be automated.
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